Land Improvement Boring?

[vmxa1]

I tried an experiment recently, where I did not build any hospitals. This made pollution quite trivial. Since I was smashing the AI, it did not have a lot of pollution either. I played the game out to their having one city and no global warming and very little pollution.

Once RR is done, pollution is a snap for a large stack of slaves.

[Willem]

Re: Land Improvement Boring?

Originally posted by Jerh9e1k5
I could automate my workers but Irrigation on grasslands in despotism!?! Please help me find the enjoyment once again, lol

Although it's not a good idea to automate in the early part of the game, it's really not that bad once you've been playing for awhile. Especially when you get into Railroads. I usually have just a few Workers that I controll manually for rush jobs etc. and let the rest do their own thing.

One thing I'd like to see is the Improve Nearest City command expanded on. It would be nice to have one Worker assigned to each city, and if it has nothing more to do it just sits in the city centre, waiting for any pollution to pop up. That would shorten the turn times considerably as well, since we wouldn't have to watch while a Worker travels from one side of the empire to the other one.

[Switch]

I think one way to drastically reduce tile improvement tedium would simply be to make roads and RR ONLY effect movement, or at the least have only roads increase tile production. I'm thinking similar to SMAC's roads and magtubes. Roads increased production slightly (I believe), and magtubes ony allowed the infinite movement. Then you wouldn't have to build RR in every worked tile, only have them to network cities and allow quick army deployment.

[Jerh9e1k5]

Wow, this many replies! Apolyton's enthusiasm has surprised me once again!

I find that in the beginnings of the game I enjoy terraforming the land. It only becomes boring once each city has about 2 workable tiles. I would use the automated workers if they didn't irrigate grasslands. Does anyone know how this could be changed? Is there somewhere that we could change to mine grasslands? With my very limited knowledge of programming I'll leave this challenge to the Apolyton community!

Jerh9e1k5

[Switch]

Hmm, a though...since some other people have also found RR to be the time when terrain improvment becomes tedious, is there a way to modify RRs effects on production, so that they ONLY have the movement bonus? I looked through the editor, but couldn't find anything. Is this a hardcoded thing, or am I not looking hard enough?

[DrSpike]

Yeah improvement is boring............make sure you learn the hotkeys so you can just repeatedly push them instead of doing it longhand.

[Jerh9e1k5]

Would anyone know how to customize the automated AI improvement tendencies? I've never used the editor before, maybe I'll go give it a look...

[vmxa1]

I don't think that is controlled by the editor settings.

[Antrine]

I don't either... however do indeed give the editor a look, there are lots of nice things under the hood so to speak.

[Dry]

Originally posted by Jerh9e1k5
I would use the automated workers if they didn't irrigate grasslands. Does anyone know how this could be changed? Is there somewhere that we could change to mine grasslands?

1. 'Heavy artillery' solution: you forbid the irrigation of grassland. I wouldn't do that, because you sometimes need to 'bring' water to your plain/desert tiles via grassland.
2. More reasonable solution: Isn't there an 'automated worker without altering existing improvement' option? Mine your grassland yourself, manually and let the AI do the rest. If he does a mistake (irrigate a tile you didn't already mined), just mine above his irrigation... or was that in another game?...civ2?

Despite those possible solutions, my main concern about automated workers is their attraction for new, unimproved, front line tiles.
When at war, I disable all automated workers, because I don't want them everywhere in the war zones - only, escorted by good defense, to build the strategical road/RR.

[Dry]

Originally posted by Switch
... is there a way to modify RRs effects on production, so that they ONLY have the movement bonus?

I don't think so.
First the RR bonus goes together with the road bonus.
BUT, if you put the 'road' bonus for a given tile to 0 (zero), I think this forbids you to build any road AT ALL. At least this is how it works for irrigation.

[Fosse]

I've said my part in threads like this one before, but I'll just once again weigh in by saying that I agree with its sentiment (in case "someone" is reading )....

Workers are boring for most of the game (though can be fun in first age), Public Works is a much better way to go, and RR production bonus and road trade bonus must go!!

Thank you to previous posters who have said why very adequatly.

[WarpStorm]

I automate about 90% of my workers with targeted jobs (clear jungle, railroad to this space, clear pollution, Shift-A) after the Middle Ages. I leave a few for those jobs that must be done now and right.

Having tried the Public Works in CTP I found it more boring. Why? There was nothing to think about.

I think the road and railroad bonuses to reflect history fairly well though.

[hexagonian]

I actually think that there isn't anything to think about with civ3 improvements, because there isn't any either/or choices for the player in the later game.

The only improvement that offers an increased benefit over it's earlier counterpart is rails - and rails destroy strategic considerations because of their infinite movement bonus. Ugh...

Where is the need to decide to either upgrade a mine for more production or build a rail to boost movement? By the time you get to rails, the tiles in my cities are fully developed with farms/mines. So my decision is build rails and clean up pollution.

Boy that's challenging...Wake me up when I need to think.

I'll take the multi-tiered tile improvement decisionmaking offered with CTP's setup any day over what is in place with civ3. Even SMAC offered that type of setup.

[TheArsenal]

I automate workers quite a bit in the late game, but it is problematic. I’ve found that it is easiest to set them on limited tasks (as WarpStorm mentioned), or to have them automate “this city only, no altering”. Otherwise workers have a nasty tendency to wander near hostile borders and get stupidly captured. I haven’t quite figured out what the rhyme of reason for this is, as sometimes workers will automatically flee to the closest city for safe harbor.